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Rh eyed. "My too-susceptible friend," I said, "you are very far gone."

"Yes," he answered: "I am really in love. It is too ridiculous. Please don't tell anyone."

"I shall certainly tell no one," I declared. "But it does not seem to me exactly ridiculous."

He gave me a grateful stare: "Ah, if you don't find it so, tant mieux."

"Regrettable, rather: that's what I should call it."

He gave me another stare: "You think I can't afford it?"

"It is not so much that."

"You think it won't look well? I will arrange it so that the harshest critic will be disarmed. This morning," he added in a moment, "she looks lovelier than ever."

"Yes, I have had a glimpse of her myself," I said. "And you have been in the shop?"

"I have spent half an hour there. I thought it best to go straight to the point."

"What did you say?'

"I said the simple truth—that I have an intense desire to possess her."

"And the hairdresser's wife? how did she take it?"

"She seemed a good deal amused."

"Amused, simply? Nothing more?"